OKEMOS – Jack Wallace hasn't slept well in weeks, he says. Too much excitement over this Okemos High School football season, giddiness that easily sweeps over the 58-year-old coach's face.

The scars of last year were nowhere to be found in Wallace's demeanor two days before Thursday's season-opener at Mason. No outward bitterness about his brief and sloppy midseason dismissal. He and his players have their eyes only on this season — the senior season for a long-anticipated class.

"Win the day," they say.

The Chiefs players are tight-knit, motivated, humbled and hopeful, in part, however, because of where they've been.

They still don't have a complete explanation of why their coach was removed by athletic director Ira Childress last season after an 0-4 start — and reinstated a few days later, after public and internal outcry. And at least a couple of them are still bothered by it.

The reasons for what happened are no longer important. That all sides learned from it, grew from it or, at the very least, survived it, is all that matters.

This is a team that found out about itself, and learned to appreciate and trust each other.

"It really brought us together and showed us who wanted to be here and who didn't," senior Christian Moore said. "And everyone stuck together, it was real nice. It helped.

"I think we have a bond that I don't think anything can break."

And this is a coach, who on the back nine of a Hall of Fame career, was reminded how much he loves his football life, how much he lives to coach kids.

"No issues," Wallace said. "I told (Childress), and I told everyone, Lou Holtz said it best, 'God put eyes in front of your head to see where you're going, not in the back of your head to see where you've been.' That's the way I look at it, looking forward. And it's not fair to these kids, if I didn't."

Wallace, in his third season with the Chiefs after more than 30 at Fowlerville, finally has his sort of team and culture at Okemos — one that yearns his tell-it-like-it-is coaching style, one with great leadership, and a large and talented senior class that's grown up together and knows it's running out of time to live up to community hype building since its youth football days.

Wallace and then-quarterback Josh Wedesky talk during a game in 2006.
(Photo:
MARK A. DULL/FILE
)

This senior group admittedly didn't approach the first half of last season with the maturity it takes to win at the varsity level. After an emotional and intense 27-6 loss at Sexton — minus Wallace — dropped Okemos to 0-5, it won three of its final four games.

"Last year, (as juniors) we kind of expected our winning streak (at lower levels) just to go on," senior Mark Luoma said. "We kind of went through the motions a little bit. We didn't realize what varsity football was all about."

"Now we know, you've got to take every day as itself, every day is huge. We have to win each day if we want to win on Friday nights."

Added senior lineman Sam Horton, a captain among the captains: "We just expected (winning) to happen (last year). And I think we put in the work. But this winter, spring and summer, we just put in so much work. I think it's all coming together."

Horton, Luoma and Moore are ardent supporters of Wallace, as is senior tailback Chris Nelson, whose ankle injuries perhaps hampered last season as much as any other factor. Nelson's maturation, Wallace said, is one of several reasons this team has a chance.

"As I got older, I saw how hard you have to work to get somewhere," Nelson said. "It just came over time. At first, it was all about me — getting 2,000 yards, all about me. As I learned, if you help other people get better, you're going to get better as a group."

As they took the practice field Tuesday night, walking two-by-two in unison, Wallace lit up.

"Look at them," he began. "They come out together as a team, they're not strangling. (No.) 54 (Horton) is our captain. He just does a tremendous job and making sure he does what he knows is right, the way I want it done.

"They've got a lot of talent. They're better kids than they are anything. Everyone's excited. They've been excited."

With starters returning at 17 positions and 24 seniors on the roster, the hope is to make the postseason and to win the CAAC Blue for the program's first conference title since 1998. To do so would likely take upsetting Sexton on Saturday night, Sept. 27, at Okemos.

"Win the day, that's our thing," Horton said. "You only have to beat them once. … That Saturday night."

This time, Wallace should be on the sidelines.

"He's that guy the whole team looks up to," Luoma said. "So when he's not there, it's just like the key ingredient. We need him constantly coaching how he does."